The Flight Portfolio

by Julie Orringer

  Grant, as it turned out, had cleared everything out of his Harvard rooms and left no forwarding address. The registrar would give Varian no information, but a girl who worked in the office told him that Grant had withdrawn from school. Withdrawn! From Harvard, the consolation prize he’d chosen in exchange for his career in music. From his studies, in which he’d quietly risen to a position of esteem among his professors. How Varian had denied that news, how he’d protested it. In Kirstein’s rooms he walked the tiled floor and cursed Grant’s stupidity while Kirstein lounged in a leather club chair, drinking gin from a cut-crystal glass.

  “All because I flirted with a woman!” Varian said. “His academic career, for that!”

  “ ‘Flirted’ is not the word I’d use,” Kirstein said lightly.

  “He couldn’t have known what happened on that island, Lincoln!”

  “I’m not talking about that. I mean before. Months before, really.”

  Varian stopped pacing. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve had a fancy for Eileen ever since Mina introduced you.” Mina was Kirstein’s sister, Eileen her best friend. The introduction had come in early spring, at a dance at the Kirstein manse on Commonwealth Ave. In her black dress, with her cultivated accent, her history of travel, her editorship at The Atlantic, Eileen had seemed to him to belong more to his professors’ milieu than his own; at the time he’d had no sexual designs on her, no romantic notion in which the two of them shared a life. But gradually something had shifted. At parties they found themselves together more often. He had come to be able to distinguish between her three black cocktail dresses, and to know that she was more comfortable on the subject of politics than on philosophy. He had found himself stockpiling the books she suggested, studying them. They had spent evenings together in conversation. And then there was Maine and their friends’ vacation house, that perfect white saltbox with its view of pine-velveted hills and riffled sea, its rooms of austere Shaker furniture, its screened porches with their sky-colored ceilings, and, down on the water, the pristine wooden boats gleaming like a fleet of musical instruments, a section of bass viols, each with its single string. All of it belonged to a life he fiercely desired, one he had vaguely envisioned might be his own: a vision impossible to realize under any but the most conventional family circumstances. And here was Eileen, her black dresses cast aside in favor of a French sailor’s shirt and split white skirt; Eileen with her dinner-party banter, Eileen who could mix a drink and serve it with a side of erudite sex-salted conversation; Eileen, a boyishly attractive woman, who presented herself to his imagination not just as an intriguing friend but as a possible partner—one who, if he played his cards right, might not require that he banish Grant entirely from his life. Of course, Grant, as attuned to Varian as he was, must have had some inkling of all this. Varian’s decision to step into that boat must have seemed a conscious and irrevocable choice. And hadn’t it been? What else could it have been?

  “But why disappear?” Varian had protested. “Why leave altogether?”

  “Can you blame him?” Kirstein said. “Could you stand it?”

  And Varian had paused at the window, the one that gave over a shade-drenched lawn and the choppy Charles, and forced himself to consider that. Of course Kirstein was right. If anyone was responsible, it was Varian himself.

  He knew the telephone number of Grant’s family in Philadelphia, of the mother who had gone home to her parents twenty years earlier: SAratoga 4-5739. On a Sunday morning after a terrible night of drinking, two days before he was to embark on a tour of Europe on the Sinaïa, he picked up the telephone and placed the call. The operator sounded new at the job; she fumbled him to SAratoga 6. He nearly lost his nerve as the operator at 6 rectified the mistake and passed him to SAratoga 4. By the time he heard the tweedle of the ringtone, his hands were shaking. A woman’s voice—quick, anxious, as if she’d been expecting a long-distance call—said, “Hello? Who’s that?”

  “Hello,” Varian said, or tried to say; what emerged was a choked half-whisper.

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Is Grant—is Elliott at home?”

  “Who is this, please?”

  “I’m calling from the university.”

  “Mr. Grant is not at home. Who’s calling, please?”

  Why was he hesitating? “This is Varian Fry,” he said. “A friend from Harvard.”

  From the other end, silence. And then, so low he might not have heard it had all his attention not been trained upon the phone, an intake of breath, and a quiet click. The line went dead. Varian stood for a moment holding the receiver. From somewhere in its depths, a circlet of metal vibrated to form words: the other party, the operator told him, had ended the call. He thought for a moment of saying “Place it again.” Of becoming, for a brief time, a nuisance to the Schiffman household. That intake of breath after he’d spoken his name: What did it mean? Was it possible Grant had told his mother everything, or some pale version of everything? Had Grant himself been listening on the extension? What would Varian find if he were to go downstairs that very moment, climb into the yellow Packard, and drive six hours to Philadelphia? Unthinking, he opened his dresser and began throwing things into a weekend bag. But then a wave of cowardice overtook him. Just what was he proposing to do? Storm the family gates? Under what set of rights, and with what authority? What could he possibly say to Grant’s mother, to his grandparents? Instead of descending to the Packard, he climbed into bed. His courage failed to return the following morning. And the next day his ship sailed to Europe. This ship, the Sinaïa, on which he now lay in crew’s quarters on a burlap sack under a coarse woolen blanket, in the port of Marseille, while the war made its inarticulate thunder all around.

  And what would Grant think if this ship sailed sometime in the night? Would he believe Varian had been deported against his will? After all, Varian’s courage had failed him before; he had not called SAratoga 4-5739 again. He had not missed his boat to Europe. He had let himself walk forward into that other life he’d imagined, the life he believed he deserved. And Grant, he saw now, had made it easy for him. He had stepped aside. He would not play second fiddle to Eileen, would not be uncle to Varian’s children, would not hover at the edge of snapshots taken at the beach. He would not be a silent supplicant who stole, here and there, a cupped hand’s worth of holy water. What he wanted, impossible though it was, was some permutation of what they had at Harvard, some urban and adult version of it. It had been too much for Varian to envision. It was too much now. But what were the consequences of refusing it again? He knew by now the toll of living that way, as an incomplete and insincere version of himself.

  If he made it back to shore, if this boat failed to depart sometime in the night for points unimaginable, he knew he would have to choose again. That was the chance Grant had extended to him by seeking him out at the Splendide. They were twelve years older; Grant had been forced to live with the consequences of his decisions too. And he’d chosen to make contact, to make himself vulnerable again. But what were they supposed to do now? How to choose? What choice, really, was on the table? What answer could there be? He remembered again the feeling of being in Gare de Noailles as the bombs fell, half-wishing for a blinding shock to end it all.

  * * *

  ________

  In the morning, the Sinaïa was still at port. Seagulls circled and shrieked. Groups of detainees strolled the decks as if for pleasure. No one had any information; no food or drink was forthcoming except for the usual fake coffee and hard brown bread. Inquiries among the other passengers revealed the nature of the roundup: haphazard, a broad and clumsy sweep. Here was a Marrakeshi jazz singer who’d mispronounced the Maréchal’s name onstage; here a widow whose husband, dead twenty years, had been falsely suspected of being a communist. Here was a Russian teacher who’d once, as an exercise, asked her students to copy a page of Marx; here were half a
dozen clients of the Centre Américain de Secours, all visibly dismayed that their ostensible savior was a prisoner too.

  Morning and afternoon passed. For dinner they got frozen beef, lentils, more hard bread, turnip soup, a measure of wine in a tin cup. The wine, Varian had to admit, was not half bad. “Only in France,” he said, and Breton postulated that this was to be their last supper, that they would soon be transported out to sea and made to walk a plank.

  Lena exhorted him not to exaggerate. “It is the Maréchal’s visit. We won’t be here long. Les rafles sont de rigueur in a fascist state.”

  “So are mass executions,” said Breton.

  As if in immediate refutation of Lena’s prediction, the ship’s whistle blew and everyone was ordered belowdecks. The portholes were closed, the hold door locked from above. The engines throbbed. The boat seemed to strain at its moorings. In the harbor, a volley of ships’ whistles blew. Surely Breton was right: in moments they would be on their way. Varian wondered: If they were made to walk the plank, how long would it take to die? It was said that the waters outside the harbor were rife with sharks.

  Victor Serge, who had survived more than a few roundups in Soviet Russia, seemed singularly unperturbed. “What’s likely to happen is nothing,” he said. “Day after day, for no one knows how long.”

  “Incroyable,” Breton said. “Already I’m so hungry I could eat my own leg.”

  “You must eat your rations,” Serge said. “Eat them and keep them down.”

  “Impossible!” Breton said.

  Two hours passed while the boat sat closed tight in the harbor, the detainees inaudible and invisible. Then at last the holds were unlatched and the portholes opened, and everyone streamed out onto the deck. The guards distributed cigarettes. Everyone took this as a hopeful sign, despite the fact that the cigarettes were stale and bent. A haze of smoke rose from the deck. Silence fell. A rumor traveled the ship: the passengers had been kept belowdecks while the Maréchal’s ship pulled into the harbor. Everyone seemed to believe this, as unlikely as it was that the Maréchal would travel via the mined sea instead of by land. The short day darkened. No further information came. After a time, the women retreated to their cabins and the men to their straw-stuffed sacks.

  As he lay awake, Varian fell to wondering who on that ship might be of help, who might be a conduit to the outer world. He had seen the ship’s captain strolling the deck, looking as disconsolate as the passengers; this was the same captain, bearded and sharp-eyed and gilt-buttoned, who had commanded the ship when Varian had crossed the ocean all those years before. Deschamps was his name, Varian remembered. To this man he might make an appeal. The captain had been a veteran of the Great War; he would not have lent his boat to its current purpose had he not been compelled by forces beyond his control. He might be convinced to radio a message somewhere, to send up, as it were, a covert semaphore flag.

  Early the next morning, Varian managed to take a stroll past Deschamps’s quarters and slide a note under the door. The note was an impassioned plea for help, penned on a leaf from a miniature notebook Breton had stuffed into his pocket upon leaving the house. Varian knew he was taking a risk; in the note he identified himself, and Mary Jayne, and the other Air Bellians, by name. He didn’t have much hope that the note would be answered. He feared even that the captain would overlook the tiny folded square of paper on which it was written. But as he stood in line for lunch that day, one of the guards appeared and barked his name.

  Varian stepped out of line. “I’m Fry,” he said.

  “You’re wanted in the captain’s quarters. You and Mademoiselle Gold.”

  Mary Jayne turned a frightened look on Varian. “Are we in trouble?” she whispered.

  “Let’s hope not.”

  Mary Jayne straightened the lapels of Varian’s patterned robe and retied his sash. There was nothing else that could be done to prepare. They followed the guard up one narrow flight of stairs and then another, then paused before a stout portholed door.

  “Entrez,” the guard commanded.

  Varian leaned forward and gave a little knock. The guard rolled his eyes and banged on the door with his fist—rudely, Varian thought. But Deschamps was not captain of these guards; there was no deference to rank, as far as Varian could tell.

  “Come in,” the captain called from inside. The guard waved them in, and, to Varian’s relief and surprise, left them there.

  In the gloom of the captain’s chambers, some remnant of the Sinaïa’s original luxury could be discerned. A red Turkish rug lay on the floor; mahogany bookcases and cleverly fitted cupboards lined the walls; electric bulbs shed their low light from faceted wall sconces. Deschamps sat at a table of the kind that might have once been used for playing cards in a Viennese drawing room: dark wood carved on every surface with cherubs, ivy, curlicues, and doves. He had been sitting in a red velvet chair, but got to his feet to welcome the Americans.

  “Monsieur Fry, we meet again!” Deschamps said. He was from Normandy, if Varian remembered correctly, but his English was impeccable, his accent a mix of sea salt and Oxford. His hair, black when Varian had last seen him, had turned a radiant sun-bleached silver. “What hideous circumstances! How ashamed I am to have you here not as my passenger but as a prisoner. And your charming friend—Miss Gold, is it?”

  Mary Jayne offered her hand; the captain kissed it.

  “I’m honored that you remember me,” Varian said. “It’s been twelve years.”

  “Remember you!” Deschamps said. “How could I forget? You played a fine game of chess. I never forget a good adversary.”

  Varian nodded his thanks. He had only the vaguest memory of playing chess with the captain; what he remembered was the relief of being distracted from his misery. But flattery seemed the politic approach. “You were a fierce opponent yourself,” he said.

  “Yes. It’s a rare man who defeats me so soundly,” the captain said, now addressing Mary Jayne. “Your young man quite embarrassed me.”

  “I’m hardly surprised,” Mary Jayne said. “He’s rather a sharp strategist.”

  “And now, Mr. Fry, it seems you’ve run afoul of the law.”

  “My friends and I were falsely accused of communist activity. The police themselves admitted they had no solid grounds for detaining us.”

  “Ah, but with the Maréchal in town, no solid grounds are grounds enough!”

  “So I understand.”

  In a few words Varian described the nature of his work in Marseille and the urgency of getting his clients off the Sinaïa. As the captain listened, he went to a sideboard and poured Varian and Mary Jayne small glasses of beer; he handed them out with apologies that he couldn’t offer anything better. Varian sipped from his glass and made his plea to the captain: he must get word of his clients’ plight to the U.S. Embassy.

  “My communications to shore have been cut off,” the captain said. “This boat was commandeered. I was ordered to lend it as a prison vessel. I’ve not been told how long the police intend to use it.” His eyes flickered toward the inlaid chessboard lying closed on a nearby bookshelf; evidently he hoped Varian would be imprisoned long enough to afford time for a rematch. But then a knock came at the door, and in stepped a cabin boy clad in a crisp brass-buttoned coat. In a tenor voice tense with the importance of his message, he announced that an exalted person from the U.S. Consulate had arrived and was waiting to see Monsieur Fry.

  “Tell him to come up at once,” the captain said.

  “Oh, thank God,” said Mary Jayne. “It’s Harry. We’re saved.”

  “Unless it’s Fullerton, in which case we’re sunk.”

  “He’d never come. He’d let you rot.”

  She was right, of course; it was Bingham. He bowed to the captain, kissed Mary Jayne’s hand, and then seated himself at Varian’s side. “Sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” he said. “I had a t
ime finding out where they’d taken you. Are you all right?”

  “We’re surviving,” Varian said. “But we’ve got no idea what they intend to do with us.”

  “It’s Pétain, you know. They’ve rounded up nearly seven thousand in town.”

  “Pardon me,” the captain interjected. “May I offer you a drink, Monsieur Vice-Consul? Un cognac? I regret that I have so little on board.”

  “I never refuse cognac,” Bingham said.

  The captain opened one of his secret sideboard cabinets and poured a dram for each of them. “A votre santé,” he said, and they drank.

  “For you, Harry, he takes out the good stuff,” Mary Jayne said.

  “Well, I hardly deserve it,” Bingham said. “I’ve only come to hearten you. There’s nothing I can do to get you off this boat today.”

  “Harry, really! You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m afraid so. Maybe if I was consul-general.”

  “But can’t you get his help?”

  “I’d think, frankly, he’d prefer you all be locked up.”

  “And when does Pétain clear out?” Varian said.

  “Not until tomorrow.”

  “Aha,” said the captain, with obvious relief. “Then you will be my guest tonight. And you and I must take down the chessboard, though I’m rather out of practice. I fear you’ll get the better of me again.”

  “I sincerely hope so,” Varian said, though he knew that if he played Deschamps, he would play to lose; he would do whatever was necessary to win the sympathies of a ship’s captain, particularly one who was trusted by the administration but at odds with it.